


Broken

by V (deepsix)



Category: A Separate Peace - Knowles
Genre: AU, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-10-20
Updated: 2002-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepsix/pseuds/V
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His arms were shaking, tense, but the fight had been drained from him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

"I'm sorry," I said blindly, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

But he still wasn't moving, and still the only sound was that of my own bated breath. I didn't know what I was waiting for. Nothing; maybe everything.

"I'm sorry," I repeated, desperately. And I was, because in that moment, I never hated him, and never thought I had. Selfishly, I didn't want him to hate me, either.

He didn't say anything, but in the moonlight filtering through the window, I could see that he was trembling against the floor. There was a shadow across his face, and his eyes were glazed, staring at nothing, at the floor. Slowly, he lifted himself up again, weight resting on his hands. His arms were shaking, tense, but the fight had been drained from him.

"Finny," I said, at the same time as he said, "please." I was almost certain I didn't hear it, that it was forged of my own imagination, out of my own delirious hope that somewhere inside of him, I was still his best friend. In the subsequent silence, I shifted in the window, preparing to slip down onto the damp ground below.

"Please," he said, more quietly this time, but so clearly that I could not have missed it. I did not know what he was asking, but to leave would have been a refusal, which he didn't deserve. I slid into the room carefully, trying and failing at making little noise. He tilted his head up to look at me, though his eyes were shadowed. His jaw was clenched, and there was an expression on his face I had not seen before. As if nothing was there, inside of him, any more. I crouched down, and held out my hand.

He seemed to consider this a moment, a long moment during which I didn't breathe. Then he reached up, slid his palm against my own, and gripped tightly, in resignation. I struggled to help him back into the bed, all awkward movements not to jar him. When he was settled, he turned away and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders were shaking, but he was not crying, because Finny never cried.

"How could you?" he asked, but it was a question without inflection. "You can't just-- it's not fair-- it's, you can't--"

"Finny," I interrupted. I didn't want him to say whatever he had to say, because I didn't want to hear it. "Finny." I said it more gently, for something to say. He turned and looked at me forlornly, and even then I felt a familiar flare of envy. I knelt next to the bed, and rested my elbows on the mattress, reaching blindly for him. He met me halfway and didn't let go. I could feel him shaking through his touch.

"I'm so sorry," I said. He leaned toward me, the slanted light falling on his face again, and with my free hand, I brushed stray hair from his forehead. He watched me impassively, and I could feel his tension fading.

He caught my hand as I drew away from him, and I thought I heard him sub-vocalise, "please, please, please," repeated so that it lost its meaning. I rose to a half-crouch, and bent to touch my lips to his, only the barest touch. I could feel his fingers tightening around my knuckles, and if there had ever been any doubt that he had become a part of me, it vanished with that simple action. I pulled away from him violently, wrenching my hands from his grasp. I backed away from the bed, and suddenly I didn't have anything left to say to him.

"I don't understand you," he said as I scrambled out the window, and it sounded, for the first time, as if he were truly broken.


End file.
